The Index April 2020 – Part 1 The Sectors, The Channels, The Formats, & The Behaviours

Each month, we survey 2,000 consumers on their fashion shopping behaviour and attitudes to track shifts in consumer behaviour.

This is the first study we have made under “lockdown” conditions with our survey having been carried out from 1-3 April, about a week after non-essential retail was closed down in the UK.

We ask our nationally representative participants to tell us about their behaviour in the prior three months so we do still see a lot of people telling us they have shopped physical stores, but this will change, clearly, with May’s survey.

However what we can already ascertain from this study is a distinct slowdown in people’s need to shop for fashion and their spending intentions for the coming six months. Before lockdown, 48% of shoppers told us they were shopping for fashion, once a month or more, just a week after lockdown, that had dropped to 41% and will slump further still.

Perhaps more enlightening is future intended behaviour: last time when we asked consumers if they planned to buy more or fewer fashion items in the coming six months, overall 55% said they intended to buy more. This time that number has fallen by 13% points, with only 42% saying they will buy more fashion.

This report comes in two parts. Please refer to the complementary Brands & Buzz Scores report, hosted in The Index section of our site, to see a first glance at which brands fared well from a reputation perspective as the COVID-19 crisis unfolded.